Cher and Janis come to Pride, and Tracey Bell comes home to Edmonton

If you're in Strathcona Saturday — and who won't be on Pride Parade day? — you might very well run into Tina Turner. Or Cher. Possibly Madonna or Janis or Dolly. This unusual accumulation of divas arrives courtesy of a funny, long-legged alter ego, a satirist in heels who loves to play dress-up — in other people's clothes. Pride in the Park, the post-parade party at End of Steel Park, is a homecoming for Tracey Bell

If you’re in Old Strathcona Saturday — and who won’t be on Pride Parade day? — you might very well run into Tina Turner. Or Cher. Possibly Madonna or Janis or Dolly.

This unusual accumulation of divas arrives courtesy of one funny, long-legged alter ego, a satirist in heels who loves to play dress-up — in other people’s clothes. Pride in the Park, the post-parade party at End of Steel Park on Saturday afternoon, is a homecoming for Tracey Bell, a celebrity impersonator who made her start being Cher during recess at York Elementary School in northeast Edmonton.

Vancouver-based for 25 years now, Bell, who has an appealing streak of self-deprecation about her, has friends and memories all over Edmonton. She explains that early stardom in school entertainments had something to do with the fact that “my mom made the best costumes.” At Steele Heights Junior High, a 13-year-old drama kid who was, by her own admission, “not a very good dancer, but a fast runner,” got her big break auditioning for the opening ceremonies of the 1978 Commonwealth Games here. “Ah, those young handsome princes in their polyester Elvis suits.”

By the time Bell was in high school, at M.E. LaZerte “before the smoking lounge turned into a computer lounge,” she turned regularly into Marilyn and Judy for the amusement of her friends. In a period where the cool kids were goth, and “wearing yellow pants was an instant controversy,” Bell went AWOL with vintage: “go-go boots, or ’50s gowns, or square dance outfits — and Fluevog boots! Yup, I had money to spend.”

Why? It’ll make you smile to think of her evening job, as a complaints clerk in the Edmonton Journal’s circulation department. “I mostly dealt with paperboys: ‘Oh, I see, you didn’t deliver the paper there; was there a big dog’?”

The route to a 30-year career in celebrity impersonation got its major ramp-up, and a potential career in corporate law was lost forever, when Goose Loonies nightclub coat check attendant, then in her third year of university (sociology/psychology), auditioned for the club with her Tina Turner imitation.

“I used my own hair, back-combed,” Bell says of an impression that remains one of her favourites (she has “the mobile of broken stilettos” to prove it). And suddenly Goose Loonies had acquired not only an impressionist with an uncanny wig supply but an “entertainment director” who thought up special themed events, like “Woodstock night,” or “Live in New York New York.”

“The ’80s were so fun,” Bell sighs nostalgically. “Men wore makeup … I put makeup and wigs on the doormen.”

For her own act, Bell kept adding diva impressions to her repertoire (one of her solo shows is called 8 Divas in 44 Minutes), which she lip-synchs while singing along unmiked. “I waited to do Madonna,” she says. “Once I studied her, I had to respect her.” Céline came a little later, too. “I was afraid people would think I was mocking French-Canadians.” Now Céline is one of her favourites, along with Dolly. “She’s so authentic … I enjoy making fun of the power Dolly has over men.”

It took a certain fortitude to get started in Bell’s line of work, she concedes, remembering an early period of “knocking on doors, mailing out VHS tapes, driving 18 hours between gigs … I’d do 40 minutes of Cher, 40 minutes of Tina. I’d change in the beer cooler, or whatever; when you do that your glasses fog up when you walk out.”

“I’m 95-per-cent business person, five-per-cent performer,” she says modestly of a career that is replete with corporate gigs, charity events, and awards for her quick wit and user-friendly ways with audiences. Bell laughs. “I’m a flawed, friendly, interactive diva.”

Finding the right audience “volunteers” is an intuitive thing, she explains. Usually she starts with Janis in Mercedes-Benz. “I look around and see who’s having fun.” A good sign is “when I stand beside them, and the energy in the room goes up. If I sense hesitation, I move on quickly.”

“I am totally satirizing,” says Bell of the quick-change extravaganza you’ll see between 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday on the End of Steel mainstage. She’s hosting it as part of Edmonton’s 36th annual Pride Festival. “These aren’t tribute shows. They’re not sexy shows. They’re comedy shows … The idea is to bring joy to people. Fun is contagious, so I’ll play diva …”

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